Week In Review: Semiconductor Manufacturing, Test

Fallout from the new U.S. export controls continues. Under new regulations, companies looking to supply Chinese chipmakers with advanced manufacturing equipment (<14nm) must first obtain a license from the U.S. Department of Commerce. In addition, U.S. persons (citizens and permanent residents) are barred from supporting China’s advanced chip development or production without a license.

• After certifying YMTC’s 128-layer 3D NAND flash memory for use in iPhones, Apple has postponed plans to use them.
• American citizens working for Chinese companies are now in limbo, according to the Wall Street Journal. Several companies, including Naura Technology Group and ASML, have suspended their American employees in China from continuing work that could now be restricted while they seek clarity on the rules around U.S. persons.
• Applied Materials revised its revenue forecast for the August-October quarter from about $6.65 billion to about $6.4 billion, as well as lowering its earnings-per-share forecast. Stricter regulations on China are expected to drive sales down by $250 million to $550 million.
• In China, General Secretary Xi Jinping called for self-reliance and the need to win a battle over “key core technologies.” China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology convened a series of emergency meetings with leading semiconductor companies, including YMTC and Dawning Information, to assess the situation.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has issued two RFIs seeking public input on programs that aim to restore U.S. global leadership in semiconductor manufacturing. Implementation of the CHIPS Incentives Program has a deadline of Nov. 14. The deadline for Manufacturing USA Semiconductor Institutes is Nov. 28.

Oregon State University plans to build a supercomputing research center in Corvallis, a $200 million project backed by a $50 million donation from Jensen Huang, NVIDIA’s co-founder and CEO and an Oregon State graduate.

Intel expanded its Ignite acceleration program for early-stage deep tech startups to include Boston, alongside existing programs in Tel Aviv and Munich. Developed as an acceleration program for early-stage deep tech startups, Intel Ignite has partnered with nearly 100 young companies.

Manufacturing

GlobalFoundries was awarded $30 million in federal funding to advance the development and production of next-generation gallium nitride (GaN) on silicon semiconductors at GF’s facility in Essex Junction, Vermont. This Other Transaction Agreement (OTA) was entered into by the Defense Microelectronics Activity via the Trusted Access Program Office (TAPO) of the U.S. Department of Defense. Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy said, “This funding is an investment in U.S. leadership in improved technology for chips that connect everything around us and power our handheld devices—with GlobalFoundries and Vermonters leading the way.”

TSMC supplier Chang Chun Arizona broke ground on its first U.S. manufacturing facility in Casa Grande, Arizona. Representing a $300 million investment, the facility, due to open in 2023, will produce electronic-grade hydrogen peroxide, TMAH-based developers, and electronic-grade plating solution.

Canon will spend more than U.S. $350 million (50 billion yen) to build a plant in the central Japanese prefecture of Tochigi to expand production of its existing lithography machines. Construction will begin in Utsunomiya in 2023 and the plant will start operation in 2025.

Texas Instruments‘ newest 300mm wafer fab in Richardson, Texas, has started initial production and will ramp over the coming months to support semiconductor demand. RFAB2 is connected to RFAB1, which opened in 2009 as the world’s first 300-mm analog wafer fab and is one of six new 300mm wafer fabs TI is building. RFAB2 is 30% larger than RFAB1, offering more than 630,000 ft² of total cleanroom space between the two fabs, which will be able to manufacture 100 million analog chips per day at full capacity.

Renesas acquired Steradian, a fabless semiconductor provider of 4D imaging radar solutions. Renesas plans to simplify the design of automotive radar systems to contribute to faster product development.

Samsung’s latest LPDDR5X DRAM, with the industry’s fastest speed of 8.5 gigabits per second (Gbps), was validated for use on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon mobile platforms. “The joint validation of 8.5Gbps LPDDR5X DRAM has enabled us to accelerate market-wide availability of this high-speed memory interface by more than a year,” said Daniel Lee, executive vice president of Samsung’s memory product planning team. “As LPDDR memory continues to broaden its usage beyond smartphones into AI and data center applications, strong collaboration between memory and SoC vendors is becoming all the more important.”

Quantum Computing Inc. (QCI) announced plans to construct and operate a new quantum nanophotonics technology manufacturing and research center. They are negotiating several offers of federal, state, and regional funding incentives to help finance the project.

Promex installed a new 2200 evo plus die bonder from BE Semiconductor Industries (Besi) on its production line, adding significant capacity, as well as enhanced accuracy, productivity and flexibility for customer projects targeting a range of key end markets, including medical, biotech and automotive.

TEL joined SEMI’s Semiconductor Climate Consortium (SCC)  as a founding member.

Recent Earnings Releases

It’s earnings season again. Reports were strong overall, despite some weakness in the consumer market.

Market Research

Semiconductor manufacturers worldwide are estimated to increase 200mm fab capacity 20% from 2021 through 2025, adding 13 new 200mm lines as the industry reaches a record high of more than 7 million wafers per month (wpm), SEMI said in its 200mm Fab Outlook to 2025 report. Surging demand for automotive and other applications are driving the capacity expansion for power semiconductors and MEMS.

Many analysts are bullish on silicon carbide, according to Investor’s Business Daily, including investment bank Canaccord Genuity, which estimates that silicon carbide wafer capacity will increase from 125,000 6-inch wafers in 2021 to more than 4 million 6-inch equivalent wafers in 2030 to meet the electric vehicle market alone.

TECHCET reported that the ceramic fabricated parts market for semiconductor fabrication equipment consumables is expected to reach US$2.3 billion in 2022, a 15% jump from US$2.0 billion in 2021.

Academic research

Researchers at UC Berkeley reported in Science the creation of the thinnest ferroelectric ever, and the thinnest demonstration of a working memory on silicon.

Video

In our latest video, Dick Otte, CEO of Promex Industries, discusses why putting different chips and chiplets into a package is harder than it sounds.

Further reading

Check out the latest Test, Measurement & Analytics newsletter and the new Manufacturing, Packaging, & Materials newsletter for these highlights and more:

• Special Report: Why Silent Data Errors Are So Hard to Find
• Special Report: SiPs: The Best Things in Small Packages
• Yield is Top Issue For MicroLEDs
• Wafer Cleaning Becomes Key Challenge in Manufacturing 3D Structures
• Bump Co-Planarity And Inconsistencies Causing Yield, Reliability Issues
• Improving Redistribution Layers For Fan-Out Packages And SiPs
• What’s Different About Next-Gen Transistors

Upcoming events:

• IEEE International Conference on Physical Assurance and Inspection of Electronics (PAINE) Oct. 25-27 (Huntsville, AL)
• SMTA International 2022, Oct. 31-Nov. 1 (Minneapolis, MN)
• SEMI Pacific Northwest Forum, Nov. 3 (Beaverton, OR)
• International Supercomputing Conference SC22, Nov. 12-18 (Dallas, TX)
• Materials Research Society, Nov. 27-Dec. 2 (Boston, MA)
• IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting, Dec. 3-7 (San Francisco, CA)